By Day, A Mild-Mannered Geek. By Night, Super Hockey Man!

The lockout is finally over. The ice has been cleaned, the skates sharpened, and the team finalized. Baby, I'm ready to go. At long last, I've gotten myself onto a hockey league for the first time in what feels like forever.

Oh...were you thinking I was talking about the NHL?

Well, that's great too, but you can read about the return of professional hockey in any paper. But this blog has the exclusive story of my return to organized hockey in a Friday night adult D league. After all, you did come here to read about me, right?

I haven't played in a hockey league in many years, preferring to stay with the occasional drop in game. Generally, league play is fairly expensive and is a huge time commitment involving games at midnight on a Tuesday. It's a pretty tough schedule to keep for a dad who has to get up to go to work in the morning. But there is a huge difference in the intensity of play between drop in and league play which enhances the enjoyment. And not only was this league priced well and on Fridays, it was also at a level lower than I last played at. For myself and one of my co-workers, it represented a chance to be studs on our team!

I suppose that remains to be seen, but if my first game (the team's third) was any indication, we've been received very well as two of the better players on this team. To be honest, that speaks more to the talent level of my team than it does my actual skills. The fact of the matter is, we still got spanked 6-2, but the word is that our team had improved overall since the first game.

If losing 6-2 is an improvement, I'd hate to see what they were like before I arrived.

Nonetheless, what was plainly obvious to us was that this team lack cohesion and organization. Over half of the team were new players, and there was either no or bad communication between players on the ice or on the bench, particularly during line changes. Someone had to step up a start trying to bark out orders and get everyone moving in the right direction. And I was very surprised to find one of those people to be me.

I'm certainly not the most extroverted person in the world. Before the game, I was fairly shy meeting my new teammates, making sure I stayed in the security circle of the co-worker that I knew as introductions were made. I would make enough small talk so that I could get a feel for who was who, but I was largely pretty quiet in the locker room.

But, like some sort of comic book super hero, the minute I put on my helmet with visor and cage covering my face, something happened. In the somewhat identity obscuring hockey gear, I suddenly began to point out all the things that were going wrong on the bench and began demanding that guys stay in position and keep with their lines. I suddenly became one of the "alpha dogs" to a group of people I had not met before tonight, a quality that is normally nowhere within me.

Can I take credit for helping the team suddenly improve? Modesty says no, but the impressions I heard from others after the game seem to indicate that I did something. Something I don't do in "real life."

Maybe I need to take my hockey helmet with me wherever I go.